Arts organizations need people to buy tickets and make donations. Do they take the easy road and produce or display what they know people want, or do they take a chance on offering something new and different, but which creates financial risks?

Likewise, artists of all stripes want their work seen and the income that exhibits and performances can bring them. After all, they have to eat and have a place to sleep. So, do they start creating work that they know will be shown and get them attention, or do they focus on work that they want to do and take a chance that some producer or exhibitor will be interested and help them avoid another day of ramen noodles?

Actor Matt DeCapua said his life and career is a constant balancing act between “being crassly commercial and the deeply, personally meaningful work” that sustains him as an artist.

DeCapua has been thinking a lot about the dichotomy since he was cast in a central role of a young artist in Michael McKeever’s comedy “South Beach Babylon,” which opens this week at Florida Studio Theatre.

It is set in the trendy art world of Miami, with its mix of artists, models, fashionistas and glam folk, debating these very issues.

It’s a personal story for the actor, who once worried he was selling out by appearing in a national commercial, though he was able to use the money he made to work on an independent film project.

“This is a balancing act that our entire culture is trying to make in a teeter-tottering way,” he said. “I see us getting lost a lot, and I also see those amazing profound moments when we’re able to get ourselves together and move away from the pursuit of making money.”

That was McKeever’s focus when he started working on the play that had its world premiere in 2010 at the Zoetic Theatre in Miami.

Jeffrey Plunkett as photographer Tony Everette and Larissa Klinger as a model Lennox Montel, "The Face of South Beach" in Florida Studio Theatre's production of Michael McKeever's "South Beach Babylon." BRIAN BRAUN PHOTO/PROVIDED BY FST

The Miami Herald described it as a “crackling” comedy that looks at the art world through shifting perspectives, from successful pop artists, rule-breaking performance artists and a publicist who can make or break careers depending on how she feels about you.

But its focus is on the battle “that goes on with any artist in making commercial work and at the same time staying true to yourself for your version of your point of view and how much we have to give up to get the work produced in front of an audience,” McKeever said in a telephone interview from his South Florida home.

Consider the young artist George in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical “Sunday in the Park With George” who worried about selling out and compromising his standards because he spent so much time raising money to pay for his futuristic art projects.

He sings:

“Advancing art is easy. Financing it is not. A vision’s just a vision if it’s only in your head. If no one gets to see it, it’s as good as dead. It has to come to light!”

As a playwright and visual artist McKeever has to do a different kind of selling. He first gained attention with his family dramatic comedy “37 Postcards,” which has received numerous productions around the country since its South Florida premiere. Florida Studio Theatre produced the second staging, as it did with his “The Miamians” five years ago.

Getting theaters to present “world premieres” is easy. The challenge is getting a follow-up production.

“It’s always so hard to get that second production. Once you have the second, they start to get easier,” he said.

Though he hasn’t that “big Broadway hit,” McKeever has been able to make a living from his writing and pay off a couple of cars “doing something I love in a field that I’ve always wanted to work in.”

Others might not consider him a success because “I haven’t won a Tony, but my definition of success is to do something you love and keep on doing it as long as you can.”

“I’ve always written with the understanding that this is a business, and it’s important even when I’m writing something that’s incredibly personal to make it accessible enough that people are willing to pay $35, $45 or $55 to see.”

As he said, “Without an audience, your work is meaningless.”

“South Beach Babylon” is one of his more personal plays. McKeever is also a visual and graphic artist who has designed posters for organizations and events like the Miami Film Festival and others.

“Every so often I’ll write a play that I’ll feel very strongly about. This is one of those plays,” he said.

And DeCapua’s role of the innocent young artist Jonas Blodgen is essentially McKeever when he was starting out.

“In some ways he is an absolute innocent, and that’s what I love about Matt. He really understood it, embraced that wide-eyed babe-in-the-wood feeling of how the character was written. When I got started, I was so terrified and so overwhelmed by the world being presented before me that it got in the way of my being able to paint.”

Before a recent rehearsal, DeCapua said that Jonas’s fish-out-of-water experiences hit home. “There is nothing that happens to him that didn’t happen to me at some point in my life,” he said.

The actor also recognizes the play’s characters characters like choreographer and performance artist Simon Gardner and photographer Tony Everette.

“I’ve met artists like Simon who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth and producing incredible, beautiful art that doesn’t do anything commercial,” he said. “I’ve met sell-outs, and, as Tony does, I’ve had to try to find a balance between my voice and what I want to say in my chosen medium and doing it in a way that won’t be prohibitive of paying bills and putting food on the table.”

Director Kate Alexander cautioned that it’s important in this discussion to keep in mind the kind of commercialism that McKeever is addressing.

“This relates to every person on the planet. Michael would love a commercial success,” she said. “We’d love a commercial success. But we’re talking about selling out. You don’t want to do a reality series,” she says to DeCapua. “You want to do something that’s meaningful that is also lucrative. It’s not all about money. It’s the emptiness that is still lucrative.”

McKeever had been thinking about the subject for more than a decade when he was commissioned to write a play for the debut of the Zoetic Theatre, in which he is a company member.

“It covers a vast palette of what art is, and putting that art in front of an audience, I hope that it has the general appeal to people who are interested in art and patronizing the arts,” McKeever said.

DeCapua’s character arrives in Miami full of ideas and quickly confronts the harsh reality and the glaring spotlight of the art world in South Florida.

“It depicts the delicious foibles of all these people,” Alexander said. “It’s nice for the audience to come upon a new world. Each person so is flawed with their extremes and a great sense of wit. That brings you closer to them. You’re engaged to know them.”

Larissa Klinger, left, as a model, and Matt DeCapua as a young and innocent artist in Michael McKeever's "South Beach Babylon" at Florida Studio Theatre. BRIAN BRAUN PHOTO/PROVIDED BY FST

DeCapua will be sharing the stage with returning FST actor Jeffrey Plunkett, who plays Tony. The rest of the cast are newcomers, including Larrisa Klinger as the model Lennox, Roger Clark as choreographer Simon Gardner, and Priscilla Fernandez as the powerful event planner Semira Mann.

As he’s been preparing for opening night, DeCapua has been trying to put himself in Jonas’ mind.

“I’ve had a lot of fun imagining the kind of art that he produces. I’ve taken my own kind of journey inspired by the experience of doing this show. I love the description of his own art work, mostly shades of gray on large canvases with slashes of color. I’m imagining what that looks like.”

Jay Handelman

Jay Handelman is the theater and television critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where he has worked since 1984. He also is President of the Foundation of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time past chairman of the association's executive committee. He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4931. Follow him at @jayhandelman on Twitter. Make sure to "Like" Arts Sarasota on Facebook for news and reviews of the arts.

Last modified: July 19, 2013
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